


A Cyclical Tide

by orphan_account



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angels as literal celestial bodies, Extended Metaphor, M/M, POV First Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-30
Updated: 2013-07-30
Packaged: 2017-12-21 20:47:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/904750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As soon as I understood that the world was not meant to burn, I understood that He had created two brothers... Before there was life, when Dean was purely turbulence, I knew already that Dean was the best of my Father’s creations.  I was a bright and distant pinprick in Dean’s sky along with millions of my siblings. I was remarkable only because I felt his and his brother’s gravity almost before they were formed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Cyclical Tide

His name is Dean, or at least it is today, or at least Dean is a good enough name for now. Dean has green eyes, and hands which are both gentle and weak. He hauls in a fish, muscles straining, and when he has it on deck he turns to his fishing partner and says, “Hey, Benny, do you think we’ll get in before the storm?”

“I don’t know why you’re always askin’ me that, brother,” Benny says. “You know better’n me what the weather’s gunna do out here.” Benny is not Dean’s brother. Or perhaps he is, this time, but he mostly means ‘brother’ figuratively. Metaphorically. Benny takes the fish from Dean and puts it in their ice box. 

Benny adds, “Also, we don’t  ever get in before the storm.” He turns to the cooler that does not hold fish and gets out a new beer.

“Ahhh, I like the storms,” Dean says. He grins at Benny and recasts his line.

“‘Corse you do,” Benny agrees, twisting the cap off his beer. “Because you’re nuts.”

“Am not! Big waves are fun. What’s the point in taking the boat all the way out here, otherwise?”

Benny shrugs. “I always thought the point was to get fish, but shows what I know I guess.”

“Yeah, you don’t know anything,” says Dean. Benny throws the bottle cap at him.

They have this conversation often. Dean likes to repeat arguments, likes to get to know every inch of them as well as he knows his bait and tackle until they’re less like disagreements and more like ceremonies. Back and forth, back and forth, like dancing together or singing a duet or dueling. Sometimes Dean goes whole human lifespans without knowing who and what he is, but that doesn’t mean he forgets.

They ride out the storm, neither of them with terror. No human knows how to be scared of the ocean when Dean is captaining the ship. By the time they bring in their catch, the sun is setting. I am waiting on the docks, but Dean cannot see me yet. Benny says Dean should go with him to the Roadhouse, where Ellen Harvelle will serve them drinks and Dean’s brother, Sam, will make them a meal. 

Dean declines. Dean is waiting for me, as I wait for him. 

I first met Dean before he ever opened those green eyes of his, when his world was a pet project my Father was becoming more and more engrossed in. While my Father distracted himself with dreams of gardens, my brothers and sisters burned, brighter and brighter. One brother burned so bright he invented the concept of  _no_ . In return, my Father invented the concept of consequences. 

The most luminescent of all of us, named Light Bringer, and put to sleep beneath my Father’s world. He held heat where other parts would not. My Father’s world began to cool. My Father disappeared. Some of us despaired. Some of us soldiered on. 

Some of us questioned.

As soon as I understood that the world was not meant to burn, I understood that He had created two brothers. One first, to move and change. Then, a second, to stay and remember. Both to come back together again, and again, and again. Before there was life, when Dean was purely turbulence, he already had that back-and-forth ingrained into him, and I knew already that Dean was and would always be the best of my Father’s creations.  I knew, but could not explain. I did not have words for it. I hardly had any words at all.

The first of us to deny our Father invented falling, but I had the pleasure of inventing jumping. I prayed to my Father for guidance (Father, who art in Heaven, by your will I was born a celestial body. Is it your will that I burn low and descend?) but He did not respond. Silence was the new word of God, but Dean made me want to be loud. Deafening. 

I was a bright and distant pinprick in Dean’s sky along with millions of my siblings. Maybe I would have caught his attention, eventually, but as loud as I might have been - even burning at my brightest - I was too far away. And anonymous, too, no brighter than the others, smaller than many. I was remarkable only because I felt his and his brother’s gravity almost before they were formed. As I was, I could never do anything but observe Dean.

So I became something new, something too close to be a stranger and yet not quite a brother. No, Dean has never called me _brother_. How could I be his  brother , when Sam (on this day, Dean calls his brother  _Sam_ ) filled that role so completely? Dean and Sam have never been apart since the day Dean began raising Sam to stand beside him. I was a new kind of family, the kind of family that chooses to jump.

Consequences, of course, were known and solid by the time I jumped. In the sight if my siblings, I was diminished. I was destroyed. “You are  _lost_ to us,” they mourned. “From the moment you saw him,  _lost_ .” But I was not, because I found Dean - and like his brother I became rock. And like Dean’s surface, I learned to reflect.

Over the cusp of the horizon, I rise. Dean could see me all the time, if he knew where to look, but Dean takes human form so often that he sometimes forgets what his eyes can’t see. When I can find no light to reflect, or Dean slips into some new human life, sometimes he doesn’t know me for months or years or decades. But we cycle together, and Dean always rushes back to where he was. Back and forth, back and forth, filling all the spaces he can. Learning every crevice over and over again.

Even as dim as I am, with no light of my own, I pull at Dean in a way nothing else can. That is why he waits, long after the last ship has come in, looking up and down the dock even though he has no plans, no rendezvous. Dean has always reached for me before he knows me. 

This night I am a sliver, and Dean has a cooler of beer. We both have enough light to see by. I say, “Hello, Dean,” and know that my voice is familiar to him, at last.

“Hey, Cas,” says Dean. He always names me Cas.

We sit on the end of the dock, Dean’s cooler behind us so that we can sit thigh-to-thigh. Light pollution keeps us from seeing most of my siblings, but I’m right there, a thin smile in the sky. And below, where the sea meets the sky in an almost seamless darkness, I am reflected in Dean. We are very alike, even if he pulls me in less physical ways. How could I have ever stayed away?”

Dean says, “Sometimes, I half convince myself this is all bullshit. But then you show up again.”

“I’ve never left you,” I say. We have this conversation often.

There’s so much more to say, but we skip over it and instead embrace. Our arms are around each other, tight and rough and inevitable. This is the beginning and the end to our every cycle. This is our constant state: an unforgiving embrace, during which we forgive each other.

**Author's Note:**

> I saw the URL "moonstiel" on tumblr and things got a little out of hand.


End file.
